Welcome to the Grit Daily Startup podcast where your host, Sebastian Rusk, interviews Gill Valerio. Valerio was passionate about fitness and opened three gyms. When COVID hit and his third gym failed, Valerio pivoted and started his own marketing business, Elevate Marketing Solutions. Valerio has worked with more than 300 health and wellness offices in a span of three years. His business focuses on digital marketing through various channels, as well as an inbound call center which serves as an extension of their clients' offices. Valerio emphasizes the importance of dedication and believing in oneself, despite failure. He also encourages not letting age or youth be a barrier to starting a business and maintaining determination to reach the end goal. Lastly, Rusk reminds the listeners to stay up to date with the latest startup news and subscribe to the podcast.

Timestamps

[00:03:08] Successful Digital Marketing Strategies for Health and Wellness Services

[00:09:05] Perseverance and Dedication for Startup Founders

Topics 

• Failing, Pivoting, and Succeeding in Entrepreneurship
• Creative Problem Solving in Business
• Combining Passions of Fitness and Entrepreneurship
• Impact of COVID-19 on Small Businesses.
   

All Quotes:

[00:08:09] "It's not just about the money. It's not just about, you know, them trying to, you know, build something for themselves. It's bigger than that."

[00:10:28] "And if you're not, you're going to get steamrolled in my opinion."

[00:09:09] "everybody says again cliche. The journey is the most impactful and important thing you'll go through."

[00:03:18] "It was just 1 at a time to be honest with you in the beginning. I had front of mine who was a chiropractor. He said, can you help me out?"

[00:09:56] "You're going to get steamrolled by them. And I have like a famous statement that's famous for me. Right? That I said to my wife, and we were having a conversation, a very deep conversation about businesses 1 night. And I said, I'm willing to die in my office chair, in my computer chair, in order to make this business work. That's the extent that I'll go to."

[00:05:05] "We started really working with and super focused on chiropractic practices. So, we really could understand their business and partner with them at the highest level we could in order to support them."

[00:06:32] "Man, I I just think that not growing or not, you know I I mean, honestly, not making money. It's horrible. Right? In the beginning when you're starting out, and when you're putting energy and effort into something, and, you know, for me, I had I have a daughter. Right? She's 6 now. She was younger at the time. And actually, when I took the leap from the gyms into digital marketing, my wife was pregnant. Right? We had our insurance, and everything set up through that So the hardest thing for me was just not having the resources as a family man, not having the resources at that time to really take care of my family and having to have faith that this was going to work out because it's very easy, I believe, for entrepreneurs to throw in the towel."

[00:01:44] "It's I think every entrepreneur's journey is fail, fail, fail until you succeed, and mine was no different."

[00:02:30] "So in my mind, I'm thinking, this is going to be, you know, I'm going to open 20 of these things. I'm going to make millions of dollars. I'm going to impact several communities."

[00:02:21] "I had my heart and my passion and my soul in it, but I didn't know what I was doing, and they kind of they kind of just they were in good geographical locations where there wasn't competition, so they did well."

[00:05:33] "The way that we do that is 1 of 2 ways. 1 is we have a full-service call center. So not only are we doing lead generation, And not only are we going out in communities and capturing names, numbers, and emails, but our internal call center that's trained for health and wellness is triaging, scheduling, getting people to walk through the door so that, you know, chiropractors, for example, could focus on doing what they want to do and what they love. Which is helping people, right, which is treating people once they walk through the door."

[00:07:15] "Business will give you startup will give you every reason you can to throw in the towel. It's up to you. I always say this to my friends and my network, the y has to, and I know this sounds cliche, but it's true. The y has to be bigger and more powerful than at all the stuff and things that get thrown at you. And for me, that happened several times. There was, you know, where we grew in revenue and then we got pushed back down or where there were roadblocks. In fact, at 1 point, I had to completely pivot and stop working with fitness centers because of the franchise I was a part of said, hey, you can't profit off other business owners in the network and franchise that you're a part of. So that was, you know, AAA sucker punch that I didn't expect to see. So, it's just getting really everything, man, getting through everything, but my take on it is the entrepreneurs that are driven and have a big y will always find a way."

[00:02:47] "We had about a third of the volume and revenue that we were doing at the other 2 when we opened the third one."

[00:04:58] "So we're a digital marketing agency. Right? There's a a lot of them out there. We specifically focus on the health and wellness niche."

[00:04:17] "I had such a passion for fitness that it was really devastating. But again, like I like every entrepreneur, I think, I look back on that and I'm extremely grateful for that experience and I truly believe that, you know, I wouldn't have gotten to where I am today had I not had to go through the hardship and the failure that I did in the gym business."

Resources

•  The Grit Daily Podcast

Connect with Sebastian Rusk

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

Connect with Gill Valerio

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Website

Call to Action

If you enjoyed this podcast and want to support us, please subscribe on the platform you listen to podcasts from, leave a review and share with your friends. We’d greatly appreciate it!

Support the show: https://hype.co/@gritdailynews

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.